
What is Traveller?              (all in my humble opinion...
------------------               jimv@empirenet.com)

Traveller is a science fiction roleplaying game originally
published by Game Designers Workshop (GDW). Hitting the market in
'77, only a year after the release of the motion picture Star
Wars, it quickly drew a large following of SF enthusiasts, who,
after several years of strong support for the game by a number of
companies (GDW, FASA, Gamelords, Judges Guild, Paranoia Press,
etc.), were soon converted into Traveller enthusiasts as well.

The initial version of the game, later dubbed "Classic Traveller"
(CT), consisted of not only a set of rules, but also an official
campaign setting. Various supplements and adventures published
separately from the core rules described the Imperium, a large
human dominated empire consisting of thousands of star systems,
as well as several alien nations outside the Imperial aegis. One
of the main draws of the Traveller RPG was this background
material that was long held to be one of the most in-depth
campaign settings anywhere in the roleplaying game publishing
industry. An even more interesting feature of this background was
that it wasn't frozen in any particular time period. As real time
went by, so too did time flow in the official setting, so that
this fictional universe evolved as major events (wars,
assassinations, etc.) took place.

Players would typically play characters who were interstellar
merchants or mercenaries, jumping from star system to star system
trying to make enough money to finance their ship. Eventually, a
war occurred between the Imperium and another human-dominated
government, known as the Zhodani Consulate, disrupting commerce
and tending to put the characters into ever more dangerous
predicaments. This war, though ending in a stalemate, eventually
led to a multi-factional civil war within the Imperium, thus
creating a new background for Traveller's next edition, called
MegaTraveller (MT).

As might be expected, many Traveller players were a little miffed
about the Imperium suddenly ripping itself apart. They had
already set up their campaigns around the idea of a relatively
stable empire and didn't want to suddenly change everything
simply because GDW had decided to make a drastic change to the
setting. Traveller also became somewhat neglected during these
years (as evidenced, in part, by the exceptionally poor
proofreading of the key MegaTraveller books). The rules became
more complicated (although the task system was hailed as a
success), and GDW's support of the game was rather sporadic.
Fortunately, a company by the name of Digest Group Publications,
that had its roots in a Traveller fanzine (The Travellers'
Digest), took the lead in developing support material for the
game so that it didn't die altogether.

Unfortunately, the GDW/DGP partnership didn't last. DGP began to
chafe under the restrictions of developing a background not their
own, and as the civil war became ever blacker and bleaker, GDW
and DGP began to disagree over the direction of the game's future
history. The net result was for DGP to invest more effort in
creating their own game system and for GDW to resume absolute
control over the official Traveller universe. Rather than
continuing to wallow in the gross violence of the Black War, or
to detail the moral relativism of the various factions, GDW
destroyed them all and jumped the setting forward seventy years.

Which brings us to GDW's third attempt at Traveller, this one
called Traveller: The New Era (or "The New Error", a name
conjured by those who worried that the proofreading might be as
dismal as Traveller's former incarnation). In this setting, the
great Imperial civil war was at an end. However, what ended it was
not so much human common sense as human ingenuity. Someone had
engineered a very intelligent and adaptable computer virus, which
took over various worlds and killed the inhabitants. Suddenly the
war effort was no longer so important as mere survival.

Mechanically compatible with Twilight 2000, another game by GDW
dealing with global holocaust, The New Era (TNE) involved the
rediscovery of forgotten worlds and hence concentrated on
exploration much more than its two predecessors. Further, the
character generation system was expanded and streamlined and
generally hailed as a success.

Of course, those Traveller players who disliked the idea of a
shattered Imperium liked the idea of a dead one even less
(particularly given that the empire's destruction was brought
about by what many players considered to be a scientifically
dubious plot device). Furthermore, the change in game mechanics
made the transition from CT/MT to TNE somewhat difficult.
However, despite these troubles, there were still many players
who liked TNE's exploration aspect, which the prior versions of
Traveller seemed to miss.

GDW finally shut its doors in 1996, and the copyrights and
trademarks to all the various incarnations of Traveller reverted
to Marc Miller who licensed with Imperium Games to create the
fourth version of Traveller (dubbed _Marc Miller's Traveller_,
a.k.a. "T4" by the fans). In this version, campaigns can be set
in different eras of the official Traveller universe. The first
of these, entitled _Milieu 0_, which was authored by various
members of the Traveller Mailing List, details the first years
of the 3rd Imperium and incorporates the traditional themes of
trade and mercenary operations with exploration and early
Imperial politics.

Of course, not everyone has jumped on the T4-bandwagon. Some
groups still play in the Classic Era using the old rules, some
play in the MegaTraveller Era, and some play in the New Era.
There are even those who use their own homebrew settings which
bear little resemblance to the official Traveller galaxy. The
fact that the audience has become so segmented, I think, is an
unavoidable outcome of the game's evolution. I personally view
it as more a strength of the game than a weakness.


Thanks to the following Traveller Mailing List members for their
assistance in revising this essay:

   Joseph "Chepe" Lockett (jlockett@io.com)
   Chris Griffen (chris.griffen@octel.com)
   Iain Rowan (iain.rowan@sunderland.ac.uk)
   Susan Shock (34zbtxq@cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu)
   William Hostman (anwfh@orion.alaska.edu)

